"Oh, I think we won't trouble Miss Anderson this afternoon, thank you, dear. I love to explore new places for myself, and I will give you all my original impressions when I come in. I can't tell you what a treat it is to me to live by the sea. I am sure I should find it company enough at any time." "Well, it's a great thing to be easily pleased. My dear"--Rachel hesitated--"if anybody should come in, you won't say anything about your meaning to be a doctor?" Mona was much amused. "I should never even think of such a thing," she said. "You may depend upon me, cousin Rachel, not to mention the fact to any one so long as I am with you." They rose from the table, and after a great deal of preparation Rachel set out in her "best things," without fear of rain. "Mind you make yourself comfortable," she said, reopening the door after she had closed it behind her. "I daresay you'll like the rocking-chair, and you'll find some bound volumes of the _Sunday at Home_ in the parlour." "Thank you," said Mona; "I do like a rocking-chair immensely." The first thing she did, however, when her cousin was gone, was to get half-a-dozen strong pieces of firewood from Sally, and prop open all the windows in the house. Then she proceeded to make a prolonged and leisurely survey of the shop. Accustomed as she was to shopping in London, where the large and constant turnover, the regular "clearing sales," and the unremitting competition, combine to keep the goods fresh and modern, where the smallest crease or dust-mark on any article is a sufficient reason for a substantial reduction in its price, she was simply appalled at the crushed, dusty, expensive, old-fashioned goods that formed the greater part of her cousin's stock-in-trade. "I shudder to think what these things may have cost to begin with," she said, straightening herself up at last with a heavy sigh; "but I should like to see the person who would take the whole thing, lock, stock, and barrel, in exchange for a five-pound note!" She had just come to this conclusion when the shop-bell rang, and an elderly woman came in. "Good morning," said Mona pleasantly. The woman stared. She did not wish to be rude, but on the other hand she did not wish to be ridiculous, and such gratuitous civility from a stranger, in the discharge of an everyday matter of business, seemed to her nothing short of that; so she was silent. "A yard o' penny elastic," she said, when she had sufficiently recovered from her surprise to speak. Mona bowed, and took down the box from its place on the shelf. "If ye've no' got onything better than ye had the last time," continued the woman, looking suspiciously at the battered pasteboard box, "I'll no trouble ye. It lookit weel eneuch, but it a' gaed intae bits the meenit it was touched." Mona examined the contents of the box critically.